Vol 11, No 2 (2016)

Castleman disease (angiofollicular hyperplasia of lymph nodes) – a rare benign lymphoproliferative disease with prolonged asymptomatic course, associated with a wide variety of autoimmune and oncological diseases and the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The rare occurrence of this disease and a variety of clinical course did not allow for a complete and consistent research on the etiology and pathogenesis and the standard therapies development. In recent years, the number of patients with Castleman disease in the Russian Federation has increased, which requires its recognition among non-neoplastic and neoplastic lymphadenopathy. The article provides an overview about clinical and histological variants of Castleman’s disease, its pathogenesis concepts, classification and treatment.

In this pilot study results of prolonged (up to 74 month) follow-up of 16 CLL patients with del17p13 or del11q22 in the first I-FISH analysis have been presented. It was shown that the presences of del17p13 or del11q22 as well as the rate of the aberrant cells having those abnormalities are significant for the prognosis and clinical course of CLL. The high rate (more than 70 %) of cells with 17p13 deletion means very unfavorable cytogenetic marker and indicates the short survival. On the other hand the low rate of cells with 17p13 deletion may predict disease progression but in case of effective treatment there are no effects on the patient’s survival. The high rate (more than 70 %) of cells with del11q22 indicates the early requiring for treatment. It was revealed the frequency of cells with marker aberrations may change in the same patient including decreasing to the control level as result of treatment and without it too. The frequency of aberrant cells decreases significantly after the finishing of appropriated treatments program and usually returns to its previous level in case of relapse and/or progression of disease. The subclones’ ratio between different marker abnormalities could vary during treatment and after its ending. It’s also possible the occurrence of new leukemic cells subclones. Taking in consideration the wide range of clinical CLL course and the possibility of the clonal evolution, the FISH-analysis should be as integral part of clinical practice both during the CLL staging and the next patient’s follow-up.

The wide range of techniques could be employed to find mismatches in minor histocompatibility antigens between transplant recipients and their donors. In the current study we compared three genotyping methods based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for four minor antigens. Three of the tested methods: allele-specific PCR, restriction fragment length polymorphism and real-time PCR with TaqMan probes demonstrated 100% reliability when compared to Sanger sequencing for all of the studied polymorphisms. High resolution melting analysis was unsuitable for genotyping of one of the tested minor antigens (HA-1) as it has linked synonymous polymorphism. Obtained data could be used to select the strategy for large-scale clinical genotyping.